VIDEO: Obama fans flood Seattle streets

Thousands of people took to the downtown Seattle streets Tuesday night to celebrate Barack Obama being elected as the 44th President of the United States.

By 10 p.m. a celebrating crowd of some 2,000 people gathered outside Pike Place Market chanting “Yes we can!”

People hugged complete strangers. Drivers of some cars who couldn’t get through the crowd left their vehicles and started hugging people around them.

“I never thought I would see what happened tonight,” said Michael Turnbull, 28, who lives in the Wallingford neighborhood. “It is a change for America. For me, it erases the last eight years of the Bush administration.”

Many people came from The Stranger’s election party at The Showbox. Turnbull described the atmosphere as “pure jubilation.”

Amanda Sapir, visiting Seattle from Arizona, and had her car stuck in the crowd as she was trying to return to her hostel.

The Obama supporter, driving with her 17-year-old niece, joined in the cheers.

“It is exciting and it is a pleasure,” she said, surrounded by the ecstatic mob. “I am glad I drove down the street to be with people celebrating the moment.”

Niamh McNamee, a Mullingar, Ireland, native living in Seattle for a year was in the crowd near The Showbox.

She said that while watching Obama’s acceptance speech, she called her father in Ireland where it was 5 a.m..

He was watching the speech, drinking some Jameson whiskey and crying, she said.

“The whole world is watching,” she said, looking at the massive Seattle crowd. “And I hope the whole world is seeing this.”